Amelie Baker is currently studying English Literature and Spanish at Newcastle University, but she grew up in Nottingham where she lived with her family and three cats. Now she lives in Newcastle in a house with her friends and a rainbow gnome called Darren, but no cats unfortunately. She works in a bar at a theatre in Newcastle and is a ski instructor, teaching people how to slide down a mountain in a cool way. She also writes in her spare time. She writes short stories, newspaper articles for Newcastle University's The Courier, and hopefully a novel at some point. Next year, she will be moving to Spain to teach English, where she will try to start that novel.
Right-footed but with the ability to operate off either flank, Northumbrian-born Jonathan Baker's early career saw him embark on a mazy dribble through the English West Midlands and the Spanish Basque Territory, from which he emerged with a second-class honours degree in Modern Languages, an appreciation for existentialist paperbacks, and troublesome soft-spots for strong European lager and Wolverhampton Wanderers. After an ill-starred foray into secondary school teaching in south central Manchester, which he prefers not to talk about (especially the time when a single large brown onion was thrown through an open window into the dead centre of his classroom, occasioning mayhem), he signed up with visible relief for the life of a lowly city-centre desk clerk, which dusty, long-afternooned vocation afforded ample headspace to dedicate to his writerly pursuits. Married, with one very-nearly grown-up boy-child, he resides in Stockport, Cheshire, in a pretend-Victorian terrace-dwelling enjoying spectacular views of the Peak District, or at least it would if the electricity substation wasn't in the way. He writes -- indeed may be doing so even as we speak -- at his blog: http://crinklybee.typepad.com
James is a physician in Portland, Oregon, who runs a teaching clinic for Legacy Health System and serves as Chief Medical Officer for Skyline Hospital in White Salmon, Washington. He finds it impossible to write stories that don't involve elements not generally found in reality, likely from a youth spent steeped in science fiction.
Akemi grew up in the Bay Area, went to college at Brown University, and lived in the UK and New Haven for a few years before eventually returning home. She studied geochemistry in school but started writing when a friend challenged her to write a page a week as a means to navigate a quarter-life crisis. A page (rather slowly) turned into a novel and she has been writing ever since. Akemi now splits her time between the Bay Area and the UK and when she isn't writing she enjoys over-researching her travel plans, cooking without ever completely following the recipe, hiking but not too strenuously, and many other basic activities including brunch. Her debut novel, The Brill Pill, is out now!
Hannah is a writer and teacher of English from Washington, Tyne and Wear. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Newcastle and was a runner up in the 2019 Sun Writing Competition with Sunderland University and Waterstones. She is currently working on a short story collection inspired by North East folklore as well as her debut novel, a modern gothic in which a woman is pursued by an unknown presence -- stalker or ghost?
Margie has four novels in print: two romantic comedies with Amazon Montlake and two thrillers with HarperCollins/Avon. Her debut thriller, A Dark Love , received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and made their Top 100 Books List of 2009. It was published in Italy by Mondadori and Germany in the prestigious Diana Verlag imprint of Random House. Originally from Queens, she grew up in Dix Hills, Long Island and earned her BA from The George Washington University. She does media relations for a law enforcement agency and writes fiction when she can. The Carrolls reside in Michigan with a Scottish Terrier named Hawkeye.
Steve is an experienced writer and dramatist. His political thriller, GLADIO: We Can Neither Confirm nor Deny (Zymurgy Publishing) came out in 2013. His feature film, Hold Back the Night (Parallax Pictures), opened Critics Week at Cannes '99 while his radio adaptation of Graham Swift's Waterland for BBC won the WGGB Best Radio Dramatisation. His short story "Little Bird" was commissioned by Comma Press for their anthology Resist: Tales of British Uprising. Currently, he is working on a new novel, The Dark Months, and developing ideas.
Rachael is a writer and poet based in Lincolnshire, UK. She recently studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln, and has work published or forthcoming with 3 Moon Magazine, Burning House Press, can we have our ball back?, Fly on the Wall Press, Horla, Streetcake Magazine, and Truffle. Follow her on Twitter @rachaelg2601 or Instagram @rachaelcharlotte14
Jill is a clinical supervisor at Northwestern University and therapist specializing in neurodiverse partnerships. Her life and career have taken her literally around the world -- she did a 360° loop with many stops along the way. She enjoys music and movie-making as well as writing and loves how these crafts intersect with her work.
Pat Fish is a senile delinquent who writes songs about sex, death, and talking animals. He lives with two cats and five guitars in Northampton, England. www.jazzbutcher.com
Leyla is a Pakistani-Uruguayan student of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Born in the UK, she grew up in Zimbabwe, which exposed her to a different culture, pushing her to experiment with narrative voices and description. She uses her writing to explore the space that people, particularly women, get to occupy in their own bodies, homes and in public areas. Leyla takes inspiration from a variety of genres such as literary fiction, psychotic horror, and magical realism. In the future, she aspires to work in either war journalism or literary publishing. She enjoys competing in sports, painting landscapes, and playing with her cats (not necessarily in that order).
Dirk is a writer of speculative fiction from Tasmania. Best known for sf and fantasy stories, he is currently working on screenwriting and non-fiction.
Mike has had a varied career in the visual arts, including a stint as a senior lecturer in higher education, and has a PhD in photography and digital imaging. But he gave it all up thirteen years ago to write fiction. Or at least to try his hand at it. He completed an MA in Creative Writing at Newcastle University in 2012, won a New Writing North Fiction Prize in 2013, and has written three novels, one of which, the psychological thriller Bad Magic, was published by Wombach Press, under the nom de plume A.M. Stirling. It can be found lurking in the digital bowels of the beast called Amazon. Apart from that he has no internet presence, which may or may not be a mistake. At present he is writing short stories whilst waiting for a novel to come along.
Melissa has published three poetry collections with Penned in the Margins, a fiction chapbook with Rough Trade, and a novel with Morbid Books. Her third poetry collection, Sunshine , received the Somerset Maugham Award and her novel, That Lonesome Valley , was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness prize.
Jaz is a fairly average human who was alive at the time of his story's creation. He enjoys cheese, singing, and cutting his toenails with a knife, although not necessarily in that order. He is Welsh, and eats surprisingly little seaweed.
Jess Lydia is a young writer from Newcastle working towards a bachelor's in English Literature and Creative writing. She has recently self-published her debut poetry collection titled Teenager in Love, which explores young people's relationships and big feelings often dismissed by older generations. Jess always has exciting new projects in the works, including a new poetry collection about healing. You can keep up with everything through her Instagram @Jesslydia_
Guy was the singer in the signed band Alba Nova. His novels include The Intimates (a 2011 Read Regional Title), Letters from Yelena (winner of an Arts Council Literature Award and featured in GCSE training by Osiris Educational), How I Left The National Grid (written as part of a PhD in Creative Writing) and An Honest Deceit (winner of an Arts Council Literature Award and a New Writing North Read Regional Award). He is a full-time lecturer at The University of Lincoln. His novel Dead Rock Stars was published in September 2020, and his first non-fiction book, Albion's Secret History: Snapshots of England's Pop Rebels and Outsiders was published by Zer0 Books in March 2021.
Stephen is an emerging author of speculative fiction, a spoken word poet, and a Jolly Rancher enthusiast from the North-East. In 2019 he left the grind of a 9-5 to study creative writing at Northumbria University. His work has been published in MIDLVLMAG (Mid-Level Management Literary Magazine), Punk Noir Magazine, and Schlock Science Fiction Magazine. His current project is a cyberpunk retelling of Gawain and the Green Knight, set in a dystopian Tyne and Wear. The correct answers are Trek over Wars, Picard over Kirk and, DS9 over TNG. You can find him at stephenmcgowansworld.com, or on twitter @geekdaddyprime, shouting into the void.
Holly North is a young adult writer from Cumbria currently living in Newcastle. She is a third-year English Literature with Creative Writing student at Newcastle University and is set to start her Creative Writing MA in September 2023. Holly usually writes fantasy or dystopian fiction, and currently has a young adult fantasy series in the works. Holly is a Jellycat enthusiast, somewhat capable pole dancer, and nature lover. She finds inspiration by mixing reality with fantasy, her influences derive from being out in the Lakes to listening to music. She lives and breathes books, whether buying, reading, or writing them.
Matt O'Grady is a man of few words.
Hope works in a really big library and lives with an excellent husband, a fourth-hand piano, too many books, and a suspicious number of cats.
For now, John is a student at Newcastle University studying English Literature, with a handful of creative writing module, but he is originally from a small town just outside Nottingham, England. His first piece to see publication is "The Ranch House between Old Zion and Nevada" but he has been scribbling little things since he was young. He has a handful of other things in the works but they just need to finally, finally be finished. Among those yet to be finished is a novel and among the finished are several short stories.
Philip is a writer, director, and composer living in Portland, Oregon. He is the creator of Frogtown, a national award-winning musical story series. Philip received an Emmy for ABC-TV's Rapmatazz and was named Best Director at the LA Film Festival.
Walker is a fiction writer with New England in his bones. He seeks out the intersections between object and place, and the memories bound up in both. To his eye, the most compelling plot is the most mundane one, and the most important detail is the smallest. "Still Life with Fragments" is his first piece of published work.
Pauline is an Irish/Welsh mix from Liverpool who has lived in many places. She has published several collections of poetry, most recently Life Pours Ordinary Plenty (2022 Red Squirrel Press).
John is an award-winning writer, originally from New York and now living in Newcastle upon Tyne. His novel Fontoon was published by Dedalus Books, and his numerous plays of various lengths have been performed at small but perfectly formed theatres in three countries. His creative writing PhD focused on the terrorism novel in a surrealist mode, a research focus that mutated into a non-fiction work called Surrealpolitik, published by Zer0 Books in 2022. He's the founding editor of the Bratum Books Uncommonalities series as well as a regular contributor.
Christi is a clinical audiologist volunteer for the Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss.
Kay Stewart's short stories have been published in several anthologies, sometimes under the name Kay Wilson. She currently has a novel out on submission about a middle-aged mother who decides to transform her life by doing stand-up comedy. It blows up her family relationships but brings her true happiness for the first time. She won the New Writing North/Journal flash fiction competition and was long-listed for Jericho Writers Pitch Perfect competition.
James lives in Newcastle upon Tyne with two cats and a variety of neuroses, but isn't sure if both groups help with writing. He is also realising that submission letters might play some role in success.
J.J. Warde lives in rural Northumberland and for ten years was Editor of The Hotspur, the parish magazine of Saint John's Church, Healey. He is also co-founder, with Mike Golding, of The Wombach Press. Before that, he spent thirty or so years employed as an advertising copywriter. His novel How to Survive in the Woods (2018) remains unpublished.
Beth must be called Beth because people have been saying it to or around her for 26 years looking all expectant. She likes putting silly little words into silly little orders that over 98% of the population won't read -- the 2% being her Nanna and Northumbria University professors that are paid to do so. She is coming to the end of her Eng Lit and Creative Writing degree and can't wait for the free time to stare at strangers in coffee shops and make up completely irrational stories about them and the way the steam from their coffee dances with their eyebrow hairs. She likes ketchup on everything and finds beauty in everything-er. Beth once won a 'Fastest Walker' award in primary school and intends to hold a rematch with any challengers at her first book signing. She is left-handed, loves frozen margaritas, and thinks Tuesdays are underrated. She spent four months studying abroad at Montclair State University in New Jersey and 23 years suppressing her love for writing -- guess that ship has well and truly sailed. Yo ho, yo ho, a writer's life for Bethhhhh.
Andrew lives in Newcastle upon Tyne and has two novels in progress.